ELSEVIER''''S DICTIONARY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES phần 9 potx

530
Rogers, C., & Skinner, B. F. (1956). Some
issues concerning the control of
human behavior: A symposium.
Science, 124, 1057-1066.
Rogers, C. (1959). A theory of therapy, per-
sonality, and interpersonal relation-
ships, as developed in the client-
centered framework. In S. Koch
(Ed.), Psychology: A study of a sci-
ence. Vol. 3. New York: McGraw-
Hill.
Rogers, C. (1961). On becoming a person.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Krause, M. (1964). An analysis of Carl R.
Rogers’ theory of personality. Ge-
netic Psychology Monographs, 69,
49-99.
Epstein, S. (1973). The self-concept revisited
or a theory of a theory. American
Psychologist, 28, 404-416.
Raimy, V. (1975). Misunderstandings of the
self: Cognitive psychotherapy and
the misconception hypothesis. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Rogers, C. (1980). A way of being. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin.

ROLE-CONFUSION HYPOTHESIS. See
ERIKSON’S THEORY OF PERSONALITY.

ROLE-CONSTRUCT THEORY. See
KELLY’S PERSONAL CONSTRUCT THE-
ORY.

ROLE-ENACTMENT THEORY. See
HYPNOSIS/HYPNOTISM, THEORIES OF.

ROLE-EXPECTATIONS HYPOTHESIS.
See WORK/CAREER/OCCUPATION, THE-
ORIES OF.

ROLE-ROLE THEORY. See SELF-CON-
CEPT THEORY.

ROLE THEORY OF PERSONALITY. See
PERSONALITY THEORIES.

ROLFING THEORY/THERAPY. The rolf-
ing theory/therapy refers to a massage treat-
ment or technique of psychotherapy - also
known formally as structural integration the-
ory - that was developed originally in the
1930s, and popularized in the 1960s and
1970s, by the American physical therapist Ida
Pauline Rolf (1896-1979), and consists of
deep penetration/massage via the fingers,
knuckles, elbows, and hands into the client’s
muscles in order to correct postural deficits
and to “realign” the body vertically and sym-
metrically with the gravity field. The theory

postulates that the body assumes particular
characteristic postures due to learned muscle
arrangements, and that if one’s muscle ar-
rangements are changed, then corresponding
personality changes will occur, also, in the
client. For example, if the person walks with a
shuffle or hesitant gait, then teaching him or
her - via postural/muscular changes - to walk
briskly, upright, and purposively will influ-
ence that individual’s personality in positive
ways as well. See also ALEXANDER MOD-
EL/TECHNIQUE; PSEUDOSCIENTIFIC/
UNCONVENTIONAL THEORIES.
REFERENCE
Rolf, I. P. (1977). Rolfing: The integration of
human structures. Santa Monica,
CA: Dennis-Landman.

ROMEO AND JULIET EFFECT. See RE-
ACTANCE THEORY.

ROSENTHAL EFFECT. See EXPERIMEN-
TER EFFECTS.

ROTATING HEAD/PORTRAIT ILLUS-
ION. See APPENDIX A.

ROTTER’S SOCIAL LEARNING THE-
ORY. = internal-external control of rein-
forcement. The American psychologist Julian

Bernard Rotter (1916- ) formulated a social
learning theory that combines the Hullian
concept of reinforcement with the Tolmanian
concept of cognition to describe situations
where the individual has a number of behav-
ioral options (behavioral potential theory). In
Rotter’s approach, each potential behavior of
the person is related to an outcome that has a
particular reinforcement value associated with
it, as well as an expectancy concerning the
likelihood of the reinforcers following each
behavior. Thus, Rotter’s theory may be char-
acterized as an expectancy-value model where
the likelihood of a behavior’s occurrence is a
531
function of both the value of the reinforcer
associated with it and the probability of the
reinforcer occurring. In Rotter’s model, the
value and probability of various reinforcers
are unique to the person, and it is the person’s
internal value and expectancy calculations that
are important rather than some objective
measure of value and probability. Rotter pro-
poses that situations may be assessed, also, in
terms of the outcomes (i.e., expectancy and
value of reinforcers) associated with specific
behaviors, as well as suggesting that individu-
als develop expectations that hold across
many situations (called generalized expectan-
cies). Among Rotter’s generalized expectan-

cies are interpersonal trust (i.e., the degree to
which one can rely on the word of others), and
internal versus external locus of control of
reinforcement (also called, simply, locus of
control), which has received a great deal of
research attention in psychology. According to
Rotter’s approach, persons who score high on
measures of internal locus of control expect
that outcomes or reinforcers depend mostly on
their own efforts, whereas persons scoring
high on external locus of control have an ex-
pectancy that outcomes depend largely on
external forces such as others, including the
factors of luck, chance, and fate. Theoreti-
cally, external locus of control types of indi-
viduals typically feel relatively helpless in
relation to events. Rotter developed the “In-
ternal-External (I-E) Scale” to measure indi-
vidual differences in generalized expectancies
concerning the extent to which punishments
and rewards are under external or internal
control. Variations of the I-E Scale have ap-
peared, also, in research in the areas of health
and children’s behavior. Although Rotter’s
theory had a large impact on research in per-
sonality and social learning psychology for
about a decade (his 1966 monograph on gen-
eralized expectancies was the most frequently
cited single article in the social sciences since
1969), its influence has declined recently -

perhaps due to the fact that the locus of con-
trol scale has been found to be more complex
than was expected originally. See also BAN-
DURA’S THEORY; EXPECTANCY THE-
ORY; HULL’S LEARNING THEORY; RE-
INFORCEMENT THEORY; TOLMAN’S
THEORY.
REFERENCES
Rotter, J. B. (1954). Social learning and clini-
cal psychology. Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Phares, E. (1957). Expectancy changes in skill
and chance situations. Journal of
Abnormal and Social Psychology,
54, 339-342.
Lefcourt, H. (1966). Internal versus external
control of reinforcement: A review.
Psychological Bulletin, 65, 206-220.
Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies
for internal versus external control
of reinforcement. Psychological
Mono-graphs, 80, No. 609.
Rotter, J. B. (1971). Generalized expectancies
for interpersonal trust. American
Psychologist, 26, 443-452.
Rotter, J. B. (1975). Some problems and mis-
conceptions related to the construct
of internal versus external control of
reinforcement. Journal of Consult-
ing and Clinical Psychology, 43, 56-

67.
Rotter, J. B. (1981). The psychological situa-
tion in social learning theory. In D.
Magnusson (Ed.), Toward a psy-
chology of situations. Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Feather, N. (Ed.) (1982). Expectancies and
actions: Expectancy-value models in
psychology. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Lefcourt, H. (Ed.) (1984). Research with the
locus of control construct. Orlando,
FL: Academic Press.
Rotter, J. B. (1990). Internal versus external
controls of reinforcement. American
Psychologist, 45, 489-493.

ROUGH-AND-READY THEORY. See
ATTITUDE/ATTITUDE CHANGE, THEO-
RIES OF.

RUBIN FIGURE/ILLUSION. See APPEN-
DIX A.

RULE LEARNING AND COMPLEXITY.
See CONCEPT LEARNING/CONCEPT
FORMATION, THEORIES OF.

RUMOR INTENSITY FORMULA. See
RUMOR TRANSMISSION THEORY.
532

RUMOR TRANSMISSION THEORY. A
rumor may be defined as an unconfirmed
message passed from one person to another in
face-to-face interaction (cf., children’s game
of “Gossip” or “Chinese Whispers”) that re-
fers to an object, person, or situation rather
than to an idea or theory. Thus, the notions of
“gossip,” “grapevine,” “hearsay,” “tattle-tale,”
and “scuttlebutt” (along with the snowball
effect - the increased magnification of material
upon the retelling of it) are included in rumor
transmission. The American sociologist H.
Taylor Buckner (1965) notes that whether a
rumor is truthful or untruthful is unimportant
in studying rumor transmission. The essential
features of a rumor are that it is unconfirmed
at the time of transmission, and that it is
passed from one person to another. Buckner’s
theoretical framework for rumor transmission
is that the individual is in one of three orienta-
tions, situations, or “sets” vis-à-vis a rumor: a
critical set, an uncritical set, or a transmission
set. If the person takes a critical set, he/she is
capable of using “critical ability” to separate
the true from the false in rumors. If an uncriti-
cal set is adopted, the person is unable to use
“critical ability” to test the truth of the rumor.
In the transmission set - usually found in labo-
ratory experiments - the individual’s “critical
ability” is considered to be irrelevant. Thus, in

Buckner’s theory of rumor transmission,
whether rumors become more or less accurate
as they are passed on depends on the individ-
ual’s “set” and on the structure of the situation
in which the rumor originates and spreads
subsequently. In the rumor intensity formula -
a theoretical proposition advanced by the
American psychologists Gordon Willard All-
port (1897-1967) and Leo Joseph Postman
(1918- ) - the suggestion is made that the
strength of a rumor depends on its importance
multiplied by the difficulty of falsifying it. In
general, rumors seem to be propagated and
governed by the same processes that underlie
the phenomena of assimilation (i.e., the distor-
tion of a memory via attempts to make it simi-
lar to other already-existing memories),
sharpening (i.e., the exaggera-
tion/magnification of certain prominent details
in memory/perception), and leveling (i.e., the
tendency to perceive/remember material as
“good gestalts” where unimportant and incon-
gruous details disappear gradually over time).
The technique of serial reproduction - a pro-
cedure for studying memory in a social con-
text - has been used, also, as a laboratory
model of rumor transmission. This approach -
developed, described, and popularized by the
American psychologist Ernest N. Henderson
(1869-1967) and the English psychologist Sir

Frederic C. Bartlett (1886-1969) - involves a
person reading a short story and then telling it
from memory to a second person who, in turn,
tells it from memory to a third person, etc., in
a “round-robin” procedure that is similar to
the child’s game of “Gossip.” When this
method is employed, the phenomena of level-
ing, sharpening, and assimilation typically are
exhibited after about only eight separate
transmissions. In a variation of the serial re-
production technique, an original stimulus that
is different from the short-story stimu-
lus/material - such as a drawing that is repro-
duced serially from memory by each of the
members of the group - may be used to
achieve the same results. See also GESTALT
THEORY/LAWS; INFECTION THE-
ORY/EFFECT; PERCEPTION (I. GEN-
ERAL), THEORIES OF.
REFERENCES
Henderson, E. N. (1903). Introductory: Educa-
tion and experimental psychology.
Psychological Monographs, 5, 1-94.
Bartlett, F. C. (1932). Remembering: A study
in experimental and social psychol-
ogy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
Allport, G. W., & Postman, L. J. (1947). The
psychology of rumor. New York:
Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

Charus, A. (1953). The basic law of rumor.
Journal of Abnormal and Social
Psychology, 48, 313-314.
Buckner, H. T. (1965). A theory of rumor
transmission. Public Opinion Quar-
terly, 29, 54-70.
Rosnow, R. L. (1980). Psychology of rumor
reconsidered. Psychological Bullet-
in, 87, 578-591.

RUMPELSTILTSKIN EFFECT/PHEN-
OMENON. See APPENDIX A.

533
RUTHERFORD’S FREQUENCY THEO-
RY. See AUDITION/HEARING, THEORIES
OF.

534


S


SALIENCE HYPOTHESIS. See DREAM
THEORY.

SAME-DIFFERENT THEORY. See SELF-
CONCEPT THEORY.

SAMPLE SIZE FALLACY. See PROB-
ABILITY THEORY/LAWS.

SANDER/LUCKIESH PARALLELO-
GRAM ILLUSION. See APPENDIX A.

SANTAYANA’S THEORY OF HUMOR.
The Spanish-born American philosopher and
poet George Santayana (1863-1952) chal-
lenged both the incongruity and superiority
theories of humor. Santayana’s theory of hu-
mor indicates that amusement (i.e., the feeling
that prompts laughter) is more directly a
physical thing than incongruity and superior-
ity theories claim - it depends on a certain
amount of nervous excitement (e.g., a person
may be amused merely by being tickled or by
hearing or seeing other people who laugh).
Although he does critique both the incongruity
and superiority humor theories, Santayana
does not totally reject those theories; for in-
stance, he agrees that people often laugh in
situations involving incongruity or degrada-
tion. Thus, according to Santayana, when we
react to a comic incongruity or degradation, it
is never those things in themselves that give
pleasure but, rather, it is the excitement and
stimulation caused by the person’s perception
of those things. Santayana insists that it is
impossible to enjoy the incongruity itself - as

some versions of incongruity theory provide -
because, as rational animals, humans are
averse constitutionally or innately to absurd-
ity, incongruity, or nonsense in any form.
Santayana, like Plato before him, maintains
that amusement is a pleasure that is mixed
with pain, and that is why people prefer to get
their mental stimulation - including humor -
without incongruity. The essence of humor,
according to Santayana, is that amusing
weakness should be combined with an “ami-
cable humanity.” See also HUMOR, THEO-
RIES OF; INCONGRUITY/ INCONSIS-
TENCY THEORIES OF HUMOR; PLATO’S
THEORY OF HUMOR; SUPERIORITY
THEORIES OF HUMOR.
REFERENCE
Santayana, G. (1896/1904). The sense of
beauty. New York: Scribner’s.

SATIATION/DISGUST, LAW OF. See
CONDUCT, LAWS OF.

SATISFICING HYPOTHESIS. See EX-
PECTED UTILITY THEORY.

SAUCE BEARNAISE EFFECT. See GAR-
CIA EFFECT.

SAW-TOOTHED THEORY. See LEAD-

ERSHIP, THEORIES OF.

SAYRE’S LAW. See MURPHY’S LAW(S).

SCALAR TIMING THEORY. = scalar ex-
pectancy theory. Scalar timing theory is the
most completely developed general quantita-
tive model of animal timing today. It attempts
to achieve the following four goals of timing/
temporal search: to account for data from
human timing experiments as well as for ani-
mal timing experiments; to account for data
from perceptual experiments (“time estima-
tion”); to account for timing behavior not only
in the range of seconds to minutes, but also for
shorter and longer durations; and to account
for inter-event distributions as well as to fixed
time from some event until reinforcement.
Three versions of timing theories, along with
their hypothetical constructs, include: scalar
timing theory (pulses from an “oscillator” are
summed in an “accumulator” and stored in a
distribution device); behavioral theory of tim-
ing (pulses from an “oscillator” advance be-
havioral states, each of which has some
strength); and multiple oscillator model (half-
phases from “multiple oscillators” are stored
in an “autoassociation matrix”). Scalar timing
theory has been categorized, also, into infor-
mation-processing theories and connectionist

theories. The notion of an “internal clock” of
timing behavior is considered by many re-
535
searchers to be an information processing sys-
tem/model that contains a number of compo-
nents such as a “pacemaker,” a switch that
may connect the pacemaker to an “accumula-
tor,” a working (short-term) memory, and a
reference (long-term) memory. According to
this view, the rate of the pacemaker is not tied
to the rate of reinforcement (as it is in the
behavioral theory of timing), although it may
vary randomly between intervals that are be-
ing timed. The connectionist theories of tim-
ing were developed to determine whether an
associationist theory of timing could account
for the data that were explained by scalar
timing theory. In terms of their “psychological
modularity,” the three timing theories may be
considered to be quite similar; that is, they all
have information-processing stages of percep-
tion, memory, and decisions; however, their
“representations” of each of these stages are
different. For instance, J. Crystal reports that a
connectionist theory of time (based on data
from rats’ judgments of time intervals in a
choice procedure) with “multiple oscillators”
is preferred over the linear timing hypothesis
of scalar timing theory. The unique strength
of scalar timing theory is that it has explicit

solutions for several experimental procedures,
and has provided precise fits to mean func-
tions and to correlation patterns between in-
dexes of behavior. The notable strength of the
behavioral theory of timing, on the other hand,
is that it provides a parsimonious account of
data with emphasis on observed behavior. The
outstanding feature of the multiple oscillator
model is that it provides qualitative fits to
some aspects (such as “periodicities” and
“systematic residuals”) of timing behavior. It
may be speculated (e.g., Church, 1997) that
the next generation of timing theories will
include the following features: standards for
description and quantitative evaluation; inte-
gration of neurobiological evidence into the
timing theories; modification of current theo-
ries and development of a new theory that
deals more efficiently with the combined ac-
counts of the perceptual representation of
time, the nature of temporal memory, and
decision processes. In another case (Weardon,
1999), it is suggested that the future tripartite
division of scalar timing theory into “clock,”
“memory,” and “decision processes” is a use-
ful general framework for studying timing,
including issues related to its neurobiological
basis. See also ASSOCIATIVE LEARNING
IN ANIMALS, THEORIES OF; BEHAV-
IORAL THEORY OF TIMING; INFORMA-

TION/INFORMATION-PROCESSING THE-
ORIES; PSYCHOLOGICAL TIME, MOD-
ELS OF; TIME, THEORIES OF.
REFERENCES
Gibbon, J. (1977). Scalar expectancy theory
and Weber’s law in animal timing.
Psychological Review, 84, 279-325.
Church, R. M., & Broadbent, H. (1991). A
connectionist model of timing. In
M. Commons & S. Grossberg
(Eds.), Neural network models of
conditioning and action. Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Gibbon, J. (1991). Origins of scalar timing.
Learning and Motivation, 22, 3-38.
Gibbon, J., & Church, R. M. (1992). Compari-
son of variance and covariance pat-
terns in parallel and serial theories
of timing. Journal of the Experimen-
tal Analysis of Behavior, 57, 393-
406.
Church, R. M. (1997). Timing and temporal
search. In C. M. Bradshaw & E.
Szabadi (Eds.), Time and behavior:
Psychological and neurobehavioral
analyses. Amsterdam, Netherlands:
North-Holland.
Crystal, J. (1999). Systematic nonlinearities in
the perception of temporal intervals.
Journal of Experimental Psychol-

ogy: Animal Behavior Processes,
25, 3-17.
Weardon, J. H. (1999). Exploring and devel-
oping scalar timing theory. Behav-
ioral Processes (Special issue. In-
terval timing: Is there a clock?), 45,
3-21.
Church, R. M. (2003). A concise introduction
to scalar timing theory. In W. H.
Meck (Ed.), Functional and neural
mechanisms of internal timing. Boca
Raton, FL: CRC Press.

SCALE ATTENUATION EFFECT. See
MEASUREMENT THEORY.
536
SCANNING HYPOTHESIS/MODEL. See
DREAM THEORY; ESTES’ STIMULUS
SAMPLING THEORY.

SCAPEGOAT THEORY. See PREJUDICE,
THEORIES OF.

SCHACHTER-SINGER’S THEORY OF
EMOTION. The American psychologists
Stanley Schachter (1922- ) and Jerome Singer
(1929- ) proposed a theory of emotions (call-
ed the cognitive-appraisal/evaluation theory)
in the 1960s that challenged certain aspects of
both the cognitive theory of emotions and the

earlier James-Lange theory. Where these other
theories assumed that each emotion is associ-
ated with a specific physiological state or
condition (cf., Funkenstein, 1955), Schachter
and Singer argued that individuals who are in
a state of physiological arousal for which they
have no explanation will label that state as an
emotion that is appropriate to the situation in
which they find themselves (e.g., the arousal
will be labeled as “happy” if the person is at a
party, but the same arousal state will be la-
beled as “angry” if the person is confronting
another person in an argument). The experi-
ments of Schachter and his associates point
out the fact that emotions seem to depend on
two components (Schachter-Singer’s theory is
sometimes also called a two-factor theory: (1)
some kind of objective physiological arousal
and (2) a subjective cognitive or mental proc-
ess and appraisal whereby persons interpret
and label their bodily changes. People who
have no reasonable or objective explanation
for their internal, emotional, or aroused state
may interpret their mood in subjective terms
according to their perception of the present
existing environment. The Schachter-Singer
theory, also, has been referred to as the juke-
box theory of emotions because one’s physiol-
ogy is aroused by some stimulus, where the
arousing stimulus is compared to the coin

placed in a jukebox. The stimulus sets off
patterns of brain activity, especially in the
hypothalamus that, in turn, activates the auto-
nomic nervous system and the endocrine
glands, causing a state of general physiologi-
cal arousal. The body’s sensory receptors
report these physiological changes to the
brain. However, the sensations are vague and
can be labeled in many different ways, just as
a jukebox activated by a coin can be made to
play any one of a number of different songs,
depending on which button is pushed. Al-
though the experiments of Schachter and his
associates seem to support a cognitive theory
of emotions, they may actually come closer to
the James-Lange theory because Schachter-
Singer’s theory implies that the physiological
arousal state comes about first, and the cogni-
tive label that defines the emotion comes af-
terward. Some theorists [e.g., the American
psychologist Magda B. Arnold (1903-2002)]
argue that Schachter’s experiments are inter-
esting but not relevant for a theory of emotion
inasmuch as people do not normally look for a
label to identify their emotions. The alterna-
tive view is that emotions are felt without
attending to the physiological changes that
accompany them, and people react to the ob-
ject or event and not to a physiological state
within themselves. On the other hand, al-

though some recent studies of emotion have
not always agreed with Schachter and Singer’s
viewpoint, many investigators do offer sup-
port for the contention that people often inter-
pret their emotions in terms of external cues.
The Schachter-Singer theory has been fruitful,
also, in suggesting the important research
question of the origin or source of one’s
physiological arousal. For example, one
source of arousal that has been explored in
recent years is the discrepancy between actual
and expected events. According to the Aus-
trian-born American American psychologist
George Mandler’s (1924- ) discrepancy-eval-
uation/constructivity theory, the greater the
gap between what a person expects and what
actually happens in a given situation, the
greater the resulting arousal. Such arousal is
interpreted, then, cognitively to yield subjec-
tive experiences of emotion. The discrepancy-
evaluation/constructivity theory suggests,
further, that arousal level determines the in-
tensity of the emotional experience, whereas
cognitive evaluation determines its specific
identity or quality. Thus, the discrepancy-
evaluation/constructivity theory extends the
Schachter-Singer theory by identifying a ma-
jor cause of the arousal that people interpret -
in terms of external cues - as one emotion or
another. See also ARNOLD’S THEORY OF

537
EMOTIONS; ATTRIBUTION THEORY;
COGNITIVE THEORIES OF EMOTIONS;
EMOTIONS, THEORIES/LAWS OF;
JAMES-LANGE/ LANGE-JAMES THEORY
OF EMOTIONS.
REFERENCES
Funkenstein, D. (1955). The physiology of
fear and anger. Scientific American,
192, 74-80.
Schachter, S., & Singer, J. (1962). Cognitive,
social, and physiological determi-
nants of emotional state. Psycho-
logical Review, 69, 379-399.
Mandler, G. (1990). A constructivity theory of
emotion. In N. Stein, B. Leventhal,
& T. Tragbasso (Eds.), Psychologi-
cal and biological approaches to
emotion. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Sinclair, R., Hoffman, C., Mark, M., Martin,
L., & Pickering, T. (1994). Con-
struct accessibility and the misat-
tribution of arousal: Schachter and
Singer revisited. Psychological Sci-
ence, 5, 15-19.

SCHAFER-MURPHY EFFECT. See GES-
TALT THEORY/LAWS.

SCHANZ’S COLOR VISION THEORY.

See COLOR VISION, THEORIES/LAWS
OF.

SCHEMA THEORY OF MEMORY. See
BARTLETT’S SCHEMATA THEORY.

SCHIZOPHRENIA, THEORIES OF. The
term schizophrenia is a general label for a
number of psychotic disorders with various
behavioral, emotional, and cognitive features.
The term was originated by the Swiss psychia-
trist Eugen Bleuler (1857-1939) in 1911, who
offered it as a replacement for the term de-
mentia praecox (i.e., “precocious madness/
deterioration/insanity”). In its literal meaning,
schizophrenia is a “splitting of the mind,” a
connotation reflecting a dissociation or sepa-
ration between the functions of feeling/emo-
tion, on one hand, and those of cognition/
thinking on the other hand. The ”split” in
schizophrenia implies a horizontal direction,
rather than a vertical direction (as indicated in
the disorder called multiple personality, which
is confused, often, by laypeople with schizo-
phrenia). In the simplest terms, multiple per-
sonality is a “split within self,” whereas schi-
zophrenia is a “split between self and others.”
Various categories, descriptions, and subtypes
of schizophrenia have been developed (e.g.,
acute, borderline, catatonic, childhood or in-

fantile autism, chronic, disorganized, he-
bephrenic, latent, paranoid/paraphrenic, proc-
ess, reactive, residual, schizoaffective, simple,
and undifferentiated), but there are certain
common aspects to all types: (1) deterioration
from previous levels of social, cognitive, and
vocational functioning; (2) onset before mid-
life (i.e., about 45-50 years of age); (3) a dura-
tion of at least six months; and (4) a pattern of
psychotic features including thought distur-
bances, bizarre delusions, hallucinations, dis-
turbed sense of self, and a loss of reality test-
ing. The progressive teleological-regression
hypothesis (Arieti, 1974) is a theory of
schizophrenia that maintains that the disorder
results from a process of active concretization,
that is, a purposeful returning to lower levels
of psychodynamic and behavioral adaptation
that - although momentarily effective in re-
ducing anxiety - tends ultimately toward re-
petitive behaviors and results in a failure to
maintain integration [cf., deviant filter theory -
holds that patients diagnosed with schizophre-
nia are unable to ignore unimportant features
and stimuli and, therefore, cannot attend to
stimuli of greater importance in the environ-
ment; and the von Domarus principle - named
after the Dutch psychiatrist Eilhardt von Do-
marus (dates unknown) - states that persons
with schizophrenia perceive two things as

identical simply because they have identical
properties or predicates, and that whereas the
normal person interprets events on the basis of
their objective features, the schizophrenic
individual interprets events in idiosyncratic
and unrealistic ways; the principle is what
logicians have known for over 2,000 years as
the “fallacy of the undistributed middle,” and
is not necessarily restricted to the reasoning
abilities in schizophrenics]. In general, current
theories of schizophrenia focus on biochemi-
cal abnormalities, with some cases of schizo-
phrenia appearing to be of genetic origin,
perhaps triggered by environmental stresses
(cf., neurodevelopmental hypothesis - holds
538
that schizophrenia is due largely to abnormali-
ties in the prenatal or neonatal development of
the individual’s nervous system, leading to
deficits in brain anatomy and behavior; viral
hypothesis of schizophrenia - postulates that
schizophrenia may be caused, or precipitated,
by a viral infection in the person; brain-spot
hypothesis - refers to theories that emphasize
organic factors in the etiology of mental dis-
ease; the mind-twist hypothesis - emphasizes a
functional, rather than a structural, basis of
mental disorders; and Sutton’s law - named
after the notorious Willie Sutton (1902-1980)
who robbed banks because “that’s where the

money is,” and is the principle - when applied
to clinical diagnosis - that one should look for
a disorder where, or in whom, it is most likely
to be found and emphasizes the predisposing
factors in all diseases and disorders). The
major theoretical models of the etiology of
schizophrenia are the specific gene theory -
assumes that the disorder is caused by one or
more faulty genes that produce metabolic
disturbances (cf., the founder effect - relates to
population genetics and the high rate of
schizophrenia in residents of Sweden above
the Artic Circle); psychoanalytic theory -
gives primacy to aggressive impulses, and
suggests that the threats of the intense id im-
pulses may provoke schizophrenia depending
on the strength of the ego; however, few data
are available on the psychoanalytic position,
and there is no evidence that ego impairments
cause schizophrenia; labeling theory - as-
sumes that the crucial factor in schizophrenia
is the act of assigning a diagnostic label to the
person where the label then influences the
way in which the person continues to behave
and, also, determines the reactions of other
people to the individual’s behavior; that is, the
social role is the disorder, and it is determined
by the labeling process; experiential/familial
theory - assumes that one’s family is a key
factor in producing schizophrenic behavior in

the person where - in a process called “mysti-
fication” - the parent systematically strips the
child’s feeling and perceptions about himself
or herself and the world of all validity so that
the child comes to doubt his/her hold on real-
ity (e.g., R. Laing’s theory of schizophrenia
refers to a “double-bind, no-win situation;”
cf., expressed emotions effect - holds that
there is a high relapse rate in schizophrenia
that is to be associated with critical emotions
expressed toward mental patients by their
families, and indicates that schizophrenia may
be a somewhat “protective” device to escape
from an undesirable social situation); bio-
chemical/neurological theories - at this time,
no single biochemical or neurological theory
has unequivocal support [cf., Fiamberti hy-
pothesis - named after the Italian psychosur-
geon Amarro M. Fiamberti (dates unknown),
is an outdated theory positing that schizophre-
nia results from a nervous-tissue deficiency of
acetylcholine that may be secondary to an
infectious/toxic condition; and the glutamate
hypothesis - suggests that schizophrenia is
caused by an activity deficit at the glutamate
synapses]. However, there are promising, but
incomplete, findings concerning areas both of
brain pathology and of excess activity of the
neurotransmitter dopamine regarding the inci-
dence of schizophrenia. Other theories in-

clude: social class theory - emphasizes the
consistent correlations found between lowest
socioeconomic class and the diagnosis of
schizophrenia; in this category, the sociogenic
hypothesis states that simply being in a low
social class may in itself cause schizophrenia,
and the social drift theory (also called the
downward drift hypothesis and social selec-
tion theory of pathology) suggests that during
the course of their developing psychosis,
schizophrenics may “drift” into the poverty-
ridden areas of the city, or may drift down-
wardly to lower levels and standards of so-
cialization and end up in pitiful circumstances;
the environmental stress/family theories -
view schizophrenia as a reaction to a stressful
environment, or family, that presents over-
whelming and anxiety-producing conditions;
the diathesis-stress hypothesis - refers to a
predisposition to develop a particular disorder:
in this case, schizophrenia, as a result of inter-
action between stressful demands and per-
sonal traits; the term schizophrenogenic par-
ent/mother hypothesis was coined [by the Ger-
man-American physician Frieda Fromm-
Reichmann (1889-1957)] to refer to the cold,
rejecting, distant, aloof, dominant, and con-
flict-inducing parent who is said to produce
schizophrenia in one’s offspring (cf., refrig-
erator parents theory - an obsolete theory of

539
autism that characterizes the autistic child’s
parents as cold, unloving, intellectual, and
relatively uninterested in their children). Early
researchers studying schizophrenia looked for,
and found, pathology in one or both parents of
psychotic children; however, more current
research suggests that there is no valid scien-
tific evidence confirming the speculation that
parental disorders precede and/or precipitate
their children’s disturbances. Another promi-
nent early viewpoint, the double-bind theory
(that is lacking, also, in empirical support)
emphasizes the situation faced by a person
who receives contradictory or “mixed” mes-
sages from a powerful person (usually the
parent) who has difficulty with close affec-
tionate relationships but cannot admit to such
feelings. In the double-bind scenario, the par-
ent communicates withdrawal and coldness
when the child approaches but, then, reaches
out toward the child with simulated love when
the child pulls back from the coldness; in this
way, the child is caught in a double bind: no
course of action can possibly prove satisfac-
tory, and all assumptions about what she or he
is supposed to do will be disconfirmed. The
constitutional-predisposition theory combines
the genetic and the environmental theories and
argues that a variety of disparate dispositions

are inherited but that the emergence of a diag-
nosable schizophrenic disorder is dependent
on the degree of these dispositions and the
extent to which they are encouraged by par-
ticular types of environmental conditions; this
point of view has the largest number of adher-
ents among specialists (cf., the largely dis-
credited seasonality effect/hypothesis - states
that there is a greater prevalence of schizo-
phrenia in persons who are born in the late
winter or early spring). The two-syndrome
hypothesis/theory suggests that schizophrenia
is composed of two separate syndromes: Type
1 that is related to dopamine sensitivity and
produces symptoms such as delusions and
hallucinations, and Type 2 that is related to
genetics and brain abnormalities and pro-
duces symptoms such as flat effect and social
withdrawal. See also LABELING AND DE-
VIANCE THEORY; PSYCHOPATHOL-
OGY, THEORIES OF.


REFERENCES
Bleuler, E. (1911/1950). Dementia praecox:
Or the group of schizophrenias.
New York: International Universi-
ties Press.
Von Domarus, E. (1944). The specific laws of
logic in schizophrenia. In J. S. Ka-

sanin (Ed.), Language and thought
in schizophrenia. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press.
Fiamberti, A. M. (1950). Acetylcholine in the
physio-pathogenesis and therapy of
schizophrenia. Congres Internation-
al de Psychiatrie, Paris, 4, 59-84.
Hollingshead, A., & Redlich, F. (1958). Social
class and mental illness: A commu-
nity study. New York: Wiley.
Meehl, P. E. (1962). Schizotaxia, schizotypy,
schizophrenia. American Psycholo-
gist, 17, 827-838.
Scheff, T. (1966). Being mentally ill: A socio-
logical theory. Chicago: Aldine.
Kohn, M. (1968). Social class and schizo-
phrenia: A critical review. In D.
Rosenthal & S. Kety (Eds.), The
transmission of schizophrenia.
Elmsford, NY: Pergamon.
Laing, R. (1969). The divided self: A study of
sanity and madness. New York:
Pantheon.
Rosenthal, D. (1971). Genetics of psychopa-
thology. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Gottesman, I., & Shields, J. (1972). Schizo-
phrenia and genetics: A twin study
vantage point. New York: Aca-
demic Press.
Rosenhan, D. (1973). On being sane in insane

places. Science, 197, 250-258.
Arieti, S. (1974). Interpretations of schizo-
phrenia. New York: Basic Books.
Kety, S. (1976). Genetic aspects of schizo-
phrenia. Psychiatric Annals, 6, 11-
32.
Murphy, J. (1976). Psychiatric labeling in
cross-cultural perspective. Science,
191, 1019-1028.
Crow, T. (1985). The two syndrome concept:
Origins and current status. Schizo-
phrenia Bulletin, 11, 471-486.
Gottesman, I. (1991). Schizophrenia genesis:
The origins of madness. New York:
Freeman.
540
Fowles, D. (1992). Schizophrenia: Diathesis-
stress revisited. Annual Review of
Psychology, 43, 303-336.
Taubes, G. (1994). Will new dopamine recep-
tors offer a key to schizophren-ia?
Science, 265, 1034-1035.
Walker, E., Kestler, L., Bollini, A., &
Hochman, K. M. (2004). Schizo-
phrenia: Etiology and course. An-
nual Review of Psychology, 55, 401-
430.

SCHIZOPHRENOGENIC PARENT/
MOTHER HYPOTHESIS. See SCHIZO-

PHRENIA, THEORIES OF.

SCHOPENHAUER’S THEORY OF HU-
MOR. The German philosopher Arthur Scho-
penhauer (1788-1860) proposed - much like
Immanuel Kant earlier - an incongruity theory
of humor. Whereas Kant located the essence
of humor in the “evaporation of an expecta-
tion,” Schopenhauer located it in a “mis-
match” between one’s sensory knowledge and
one’s abstract knowledge of things. According
to Schopenhauer, what one perceives through
the senses are individual aspects with many
characteristics, but when the person organizes
his/her sense perceptions under abstract con-
cepts the focus is only on a few characteristics
of any individual aspect/thing. This practice
allows one to lump very different things under
the same concept, and to refer to very differ-
ent things by the same word. Schopenhauer’s
theory of humor suggests that humor arises
when one is struck by some clash between a
concept and a perception that are “supposed”
to be of the same thing. It may be noted, also,
that Schopenhauer’s theory of humor is a
“sudden contrast theory of laughter” (cf.,
Hobbes’ sudden glory theory) - in addition to
being an incongruity theory - in which the
cause of laughter in every case is simply the
sudden perception of the incongruity between

a concept and the real objects that have been
thought through in some relation, and laughter
itself is just the expression of such an incon-
gruity. Additionally, Schopenhauer divides the
notion of the ludicrous into two species: wit
and folly. Wit is viewed as the case in which
one has previously known two or more very
different real objects (ideas of sense-percep-
tion) and has identified them intentionally
through the identity of a concept that compre-
hends them both. On the other hand, folly is
seen as the case in which one starts with a
concept under which two objects are sub-
sumed, and the difference between them that
the person perceives suddenly. Thus, accord-
ing to Schopenhauer, every ludicrous thing is
either a flash of wit or a foolish action, based
on whether the sequence goes from the dis-
crepancy of the objects to the identity of the
concept, or vice-versa. Schopenhauer asserts
that the reason for one’s enjoyment of the
ludicrous lies in the primacy of the “will,” or
as he suggests epigrammatically, “No will: no
idea, no world.” Essentially, in Schopen-
hauer’s view, one’s pleasure at the ludicrous
arises from the “victory” of knowledge of
perception over that of thought. See also
HOBBES’ THEORY OF HU-
MOR/LAUGHTER; HUMOR, THEORIES
OF; INCONGRUITY/ INCONSISTENCY

THEORIES OF HUMOR; KANT’S THE-
ORY OF HUMOR/ LAUGHTER.
REFERENCE
Schopenhauer, A. (1819/1906). The world as
will and idea. London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul.

SCIENTIST-PRACTITIONER/BOULDER
MODEL. See PARADIGM SHIFT DOC-
TRINE.

SCRIPT THEORY. See BERNE’S SCRIPT
THEORY.

SCRIPTURE’S BLOCKS. See APPENDIX
A, SCHRODER STAIRCASE ILLUSION.

SCHRODER STAIRCASE ILLUSION. See
APPENDIX A.

SEASONALITY EFFECT/HYPOTHESIS.
See SCHIZOPHRENIA, THEORIES OF.

SECONDARY LAWS OF ASSOCIATION.
See ASSOCIATION, LAWS/PRINCIPLES
OF.

SECONDARY MEMORY. See SHORT-
TERM AND LONG-TERM MEMORY,
THEORIES OF.

541
SECONDARY REINFORCEMENT,
PRINCIPLE OF. See REINFORCEMENT
THEORY; SKINNER’S DESCRIPTIVE BE-
HAVIOR/OPERANT CONDITIONING
THEORY.

SECULAR HUMANIST DOCTRINE. See
KOHLBERG’S THEORY OF MORALITY.

SECURE-BASE PHENOMENON. See DE-
VELOPMENTAL THEORY.

SEDUCTION THEORY. The Austrian neu-
rologist/psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856-
1939) proposed a seduction theory in 1895
(but abandoned it after a few years), in which
the cause of neuroses was thought to be trace-
able to repressed memories of sexual seduc-
tion having occurred in one’s childhood. After
1897, however, Freud dropped the notion that
the “seductions” were based in reality and
advanced, instead, a theory of psychical real-
ity (i.e., the idea that anything that is inter-
preted by a person as real should be attended
to, including fantasies that are experienced as
memories of occurrences - such as sexual
seduction during childhood - whether or not
they are based on real events) to account for
the problems of neuroses. The related Freu-

dian term primal fantasy/phantasy refers to a
primitive fantasy (imagination or mental im-
agery), including the following: the primal
scene (the vision/observation of sexual inter-
course between one’s parents), one’s castra-
tion, one’s seduction, or some such similar
personal imagined experiences, and which
were posited by Freudian analysts to be uni-
versal in occurrence and to be transmitted by
genetic inheritance (Freud’s genetic theory)
originating from supposed common practices
in pre-recorded history. See also DODO HY-
POTHESIS; FREUD’S THEORY OF PER-
SONALITY.
REFERENCES.
Freud, S. (1914). On the history of the psy-
cho-analytic movement. In The
standard edition of the complete
psychological works of Sigmund
Freud. London: Hogarth Press.
Freud, S. (1915). A case of paranoia running
counter to the psycho-analytic the-
ory of the disease. In The standard
edition of the complete psychologi-
cal works of Sigmund Freud. Lon-
don: Hogarth Press.
Freud, S. (1916). Introductory lectures on psy-
cho-analysis. In The standard edi-
tion of the complete psychological
works of Sigmund Freud. London:

Hogarth Press.

SEGMENTAL THEORY. See NEURON/
NEURAL/NERVE THEORY.

SEGREGATION, LAW OF. See MEN-
DEL’S LAWS/PRINCIPLES.

SELECTION, LAW OF. See EFFECT,
LAW OF; VIGILANCE, THEORIES OF.

SELECTIVE ATTENTION THEORIES.
See BLOCKING PHENOMENON/EFFECT;
ESTES’ STIMULUS SAMPLING THEORY.

SELECTIVE SOCIAL INTERACTION
THEORY. See AGING, THEORIES OF.

SELF-ACTUALIZING MAN THEORY.
See MASLOW’S THEORY OF PERSONAL-
ITY; ORGANIZATIONAL/INDUSTRIAL/
SYSTEMS THEORY.

SELF-ATTENTION THEORY. See SELF-
CONSISTENCY AND SELF-ENHANCE-
MENT THEORIES.

SELF-CATEGORIZATION THEORY.
See PREJUDICE, THEORIES OF.

SELF-CONCEPT THEORY. = self-psy-
chology theory. Based on self-consistency the-
ory, each individual is guided by his/her own
theory of reality that, in turn, consists of a
self-theory and a world-theory [cf., heliocen-
tric theory and its influence on personal self-
esteem or self-importance; the theory is the
Polish astronomer Nicolas Copernicus’ (1473-
1543) view of the solar system in which the
universe is no longer seen to revolve around
humans on Earth, but the Earth is only one
planet rotating on its axis and revolving
around a medium-sized star, the Sun, in a
small corner of the entire universe; such a
view deprecates the importance of humans].
542
The construct of self-concept is a self-theory,
and suggests that without their theories of
reality and self, people would experience the
world as chaotic; the self-concept is the indi-
vidual’s fundamental frame of reference (cf.,
congruence-of-images theory - the notion that
in any social system people have images of
themselves and others, and all people interact
in ways so as to confirm these images). In-
formation that is inconsistent with the self-
theory or self-concept theory is viewed as a
threat, and when the organization of a self-
theory is under stress, the person defends the
existing organization and attempts to assimi-

late new information. According to self-
concept theory, two self-view stabilizing proc-
esses are called “cognitive restructuring” (e.g.,
the person misperceives another person’s be-
havior in order to achieve congruency), and
“selective interaction” (e.g., people choose to
interact with others who confirm their self-
concept). The theory asserts that the impor-
tance of a stable self-concept becomes appar-
ent in its absence; also, a changing and uncer-
tain self-concept can be damaging, theoreti-
cally, to one’s physical health as well as to
one’s psychological well-being (cf., negative
self-verification theory - posits that people
who hold negative self-views find it uncom-
fortable to be with people who see them in a
positive way and, therefore, have a tendency
to affiliate with people who confirm their
negative self-concept, self-image, or self-
perception). Both self-consistency and self-
enhancement theories suggest that the self-
concept has a powerful influence on how peo-
ple perceive events; the former theory pro-
poses that people perceive events in ways that
are consistent with their self-views; and the
latter theory proposes that people perceive
events in ways that enhance their self-esteem
[cf., virtual self - a notion in self-psychology
referring to a parent’s image of the new-
born/neonate’s self; the cognitive self versus

the psychoanalytic self (Westen, 1992); and
the fashioning effect - the influence that a self-
determined social role has on one’s own self-
perception and behavior]. According to the
good-enough mother hypothesis - formulated
by the English psychoanalyst Donald W.
Winnicott (1896-1971) - the mother is viewed
as one who initially behaves toward a totally
dependent infant in a way that is determined
exclusively by the infant; the mother allows
the infant to feel omnipotent and contributes
to the infant’s fantasy that the mother is part
of the infant itself; later, the mother allows the
child to abandon such a fantasy and separate
from her in an orderly process. The good-
enough mother hypothesis suggests that a
mother who is “too good” interferes with the
regular process of the child’s separation, as
well as with the normal developmental proc-
ess of “selfhood.” On the other hand, a mother
who is too distant, or is not “good enough,”
generates anxiety in the child. In either sce-
nario, the failure to provide “good-enough”
mothering may disrupt the development of a
healthy self-concept in the child, as well as
cause disruption in adulthood of the ability to
establish meaningful and healthy relationships
with others [cf., Michelangelo phenomenon -
named after the Italian sculptor Michelangelo
Buonarroti (1475-1564), and studied by the

American psychologist Stephen M. Drigotas
(1966- ) and his colleagues - refers to a pat-
tern of interpersonal/relational interdepend-
ence in which close partners influence each
other’s behaviors, values, and dispositions in
such a way as to bring them closer to their
“ideal selves”]. According to the Austrian-
born American psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut
(1913-1981), the “grandiose self” is a self-
image that a child develops when its natural
narcissism is stunted or frustrated by the
mother’s occasional failure to respond ade-
quately; the “grandiose self” normally be-
comes more moderate as the child grows older
and its parents’ responses change toward the
child. However, the “grandiose self” (also
called the “grandiose-exhibitionist self”) may
remain unchanged if the child’s normal devel-
opmental sequence is disrupted (e.g., the
mother may never respond adequately, or she
responds unrealistically or unpredictably);
under such conditions, the child may develop
“narcissistic personality disorder” in adult-
hood. In his self-psychology theory, Kohut
also identifies the constituent elements of the
self as the “pole of goals/ambitions,” the “pole
of ideals/standards,” and the “arc of tension”
(between the two poles seeking to activate
one’s basic skills and talents); he also makes
distinctions between the “virtual self” (an

543
image of the infant’s self in the parent’s
mind), the “nuclear self” (the first organiza-
tion of the self that is revealed at about two
years of age), the “cohesive self” (a consistent
structure that represents the normally func-
tioning individual), and the “grandiose self”
(the normally exhibitionistic and self-centered
persona of the infant). In his self-presentation
theory, also called role-role theory (in which
roles are used to explain and account for the
patterns and regularities of social interactive
behavior), the Canadian-born American soci-
ologist Erving Goffman (1922-1982) asserts
that individuals exercise conscious and/or
unconscious control of the impression that
they create in social interactions and situa-
tions. Self-presentation is a significant form of
impression management (i.e., the control and
regulation of information in order to affect the
attitudes/opinions of target persons). Whereas
impression management may focus on shap-
ing other people’s impressions of an individ-
ual - such as oneself, an enemy, or a friend/
acquaintance - or of an event, self-
presentation theory focuses exclusively on
controlling impressions of oneself. In general,
impression formation refers to the rapid as-
sessment or perception/understanding of the
personality of another individual on the basis

of a wide range of characteristics. The form of
self-presentation called ingratiation is the
attempt of a person to win the good opinion of
a target person via methods such as “other-
enhancement” - the ingratiator compliments,
flatters, or gives favors to the target person;
“opinion conformity” - the ingratiator pre-
tends to share the same attitudes/opinions as
the target person; and “biased self-
presentation” - ingratiators of both genders
emphasize their most attractive features or
qualities and minimize their weak characteris-
tics (the self-verification hypothesis suggests
that each person has a self-concept that he/she
wishes would be validated and accepted by
others and, thereby, confirms what one al-
ready knows about oneself). In the self-
monitoring activities that accompany self-
presentation, the individual closely observes
and controls his/her expressive behaviors
(such as facial expression, emotions, dress
styles, handwriting, etc.), and may often be
highly responsive to social and interpersonal
cues to behaviors that are appropriate (“politi-
cally correct”) to the situation. The same-
different theory holds that all individuals un-
dergo a developmental self-analysis of how
they compare with their peers and, from such
an assessment, they come to view themselves
as belonging to certain categories and not

others; for example, in regard to sexual devel-
opment, this approach leads one to view one-
self as male, female, intersex, androphilic,
gynecophilic, ambiphil-ic, transsexual, etc.
(cf., Diamond & Karlen, 1980); the ego-alter
theory posits that social interaction is con-
trolled by the person’s self-perception in rela-
tion to others (called “alters”); the optimal
self-esteem theory is characterized by quali-
ties associated with genuine, true, stable, and
congruent high self-esteem, and the concept of
authenticity serves to delineate the adaptive
features of optimal self-esteem (cf., Kernis,
2003); and the self-discrepancy theory indi-
cates how different types of discrepancies
between self-state representations are related
to different kinds of emotional vulnerabilities
(cf., Higgins, 1987), where one domain of the
self (actual; ideal; ought) and one view on the
self (own; significant other) constitute each
type of self-state representation. In personality
disintegration, the individual’s self-concept
and social behavior is fragmented to the de-
gree that the person no longer presents a uni-
fied and predictable set of attitudes, beliefs,
behavioral responses, or traits, with the most
extreme cases being found in schizophrenics.
Detractors of self-concept theory (e.g., the
behaviorists, radical empiricists, and logical
positivists) suggest that the notion of “self”

(and even “personality”) is a pseudo-concept
that is superfluous and meaningless in the
scientific analysis of human behavior. The
American psychologist B. F. Skinner (1904-
1990) notes that “origination” is at the heart of
the issue of a “self” or a “sense of self”: one
begins as an organism and becomes a “per-
son” or a “self” only as he or she acquires a
repertoire of behavior, and all “selves” are
merely the products of genetic and environ-
mental histories. Skinner asserts that there is
no place in the scientific enterprise for the
hypothetical notion of “self” as a true origina-
tor or initiator of action. See also
FESTINGER’S COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
544
THEORY; OBJECT-RELA-TIONS THE-
ORY; PSYCHOPATHOLOGY, THEORIES
OF; ROGERS’ THEORY OF PERSONAL-
ITY; SELF-CONSISTENCY AND SELF-
ENHANCEMENT THEORIES; WORK,
CAREER, AND OCCUPATION, THEORIES
OF.
REFERENCES
Winnicott, D. W. (1957). Mother and child: A
primer of first relationships. New
York: Basic Books.
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self
in everyday life. New York: Dou-
bleday.

Epstein, S. (1973). The self-concept revisited:
Or a theory of a theory. American
Psychologist, 28, 404-416.
Skinner, B. F. (1974). About behaviorism.
New York: Knopf.
Shavelson, R. J., Hubner, J. J., & Stanton, G.
C. (1976). Self-concept validation of
construct interpretations. Review of
Educational Research, 46, 407-441.
Kohut, H. (1977). The restoration of the self.
New York: International Universi-
ties Press.
Diamond, M., & Karlen, A. (1980). Sexual
decisions. Boston: Little, Brown.
Epstein, S. (1980). The self-concept: A review
and the proposal of an integrated
theory of personality. In E. Straub
(Ed.), Personality: Basic aspects
and current research. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Lee, B., & Smith, K. (1982). Psychosocial
theories of the self. New York: Ple-
num.
Snyder, M., & Gangestad, S. (1982). Choos-
ing social situations: Two investiga-
tions of self-monitoring processes.
Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 43, 123-135.
Stern, R. (1986). Theories of the unconscious
and theories of the self. Hillsdale,

NJ: Analytic Press.
Higgins, E. T. (1987). Self-discrepancy: A
theory relating self and affect. Psy-
chological Review, 94, 319-340.
Bacal, H. A., & Newman, K. M. (1990).
Theories of object relations: Bridges
to self psychology. New York: Co-
lumbia University Press.
Levin, J. D. (1992). Theories of the self.
Washington, D.C.: Hemisphere.
Westen, D. (1992). The cognitive self and the
psychoanalytic self: Can we put
ourselves together? Psychological
Inquiry, 3, 1-13.
Gross, S. E., & Madson, L. (1997). Models of
the self: Self-construals and gender.
Psychological Bulletin, 122, 5-37.
Drigotas, S. M., Rusbult, C., Wieselquist, J.,
& Whitton, S. (1999). Close partner
as sculptor of the ideal self: Behav-
ioral affirmation and the Michelan-
gelo phenomenon. Journal of Per-
sonality and Social Psychology, 77,
293-323.
Dweck, C. S. (1999). Self-theories: Their role
in motivation, personality, and de-
velopment. New York: Psychology
Press.
Ellemers, N., Spears, R., & Doosje, B. (2002).
Self and social identity. Annual Re-

view of Psychology, 53, 161-186.
Kernis, M. H. (2003). Toward a conceptuali-
zation of optimal self-esteem. Psy-
chological Inquiry, 14, 1-26.

SELF-CONSISTENCY AND SELF-EN-
HANCEMENT THEORIES. According to
self-consistency theory (e.g., Lecky, 1945/
1969), people interpret information and act in
ways that are consistent with, and will per-
petuate, their “self-views.” In contrast, self-
enhancement theory (e.g., Rogers, 1961) con-
tends that people are striving constantly to feel
better about themselves and will, therefore, act
and assimilate information in such a way as to
achieve this goal (cf., self-attention theory - a
group dynamics model stating that one’s self-
awareness increases as the number of people
in the majority increases and as the individ-
ual’s subgroup becomes smaller; and self-
evaluation maintenance model - a group dy-
namics model positing that a person seeks
group membership on the conditions that the
other members in the group excel in areas that
are not central to the person’s self-concept,
and that the person feels superior to other
members in other groups in areas that are
central to the person’s self-concept). Both
theories predict that people with high esteem,
for example, will respond favorably to posi-

545
tive feedback either because it is consistent
with their present self-views (self-consistency
theory) or because it enhances their self-views
(self-enhancement theory). However, for per-
sons with low self-esteem, the two theories
make contradictory predictions. Self-
consistency theory predicts that positive feed-
back may be rejected by low self-esteem per-
sons because it is inconsistent with their self-
schema. In contrast, self-enhancement theory
predicts that positive feedback will be ac-
cepted by low self-esteem individuals because
the feedback functions to bolster their self-
image. In general, neither theory has received
unambiguous support in the psychological
literature: some studies support self-
enhancement theory and others support self-
consistency theory. Attempts to reconcile the
self-enhancement/self-consistency debate or
controversy (e.g. Shrauger, 1975) suggest that
studies assessing cognitive responses to feed-
back, for example, tend to produce consis-
tency effects, whereas studies measuring af-
fective responses to feedback tend to produce
enhancement effects. See also ATTITUDE/
ATTITUDE CHANGE, THEORIES OF;
FESTINGER’S COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
THEORY; ROGERS’ THEORY OF PER-
SONALITY; SELF-CONCEPT THEORY.

REFERENCES
Lecky, P. (1945/1969). Self-consistency: A
theory of personality. New York: Is-
land Press/Doubleday.
Rogers, C. (1961). On becoming a person: A
therapist’s view of psychotherapy.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Jones, S. C. (1973). Self and interpersonal
evaluations: Esteem theories versus
consistency theories. Psychological
Bulletin, 79, 185-199.
Shrauger, J. S. (1975). Responses to evalua-
tion as a function of initial self-
perceptions. Psychological Bulletin,
82, 581-596.
Swann, W. B., Griffin, J. J., Predmore, S. C.,
& Gaines, B. (1987). The cognitive-
affective crossfire: When self-con-
sistency confronts self-enhance-
ment. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 52, 881-889.

SELF-DEFEATING PROPHECY. See
PYGMALION EFFECT.

SELF-DISCREPANCY THEORY. See
SELF-CONCEPT THEORY.

SELF-EVALUATION MAINTENANCE
MODEL. See SELF-CONSISTENCY AND

SELF-ENHANCEMENT THEORIES.

SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY. See
EXPERIMENTER EFFECTS; PYGMALION
EFFECT.

SELFISH GENE HYPOTHESIS. See
MENDEL’S LAWS/PRINCIPLES.

SELF-MONITORING THEORY/METH-
OD. In the area of education/learning, the
procedure of self-monitoring (S-M) refers to
the process of discriminating target behaviors
- paying deliberate attention to some aspect of
one’s behavior - and related events, and is an
important component of self-regulated (i.e.,
independent, self-motivated) thinking and
learning. The social psychological construct of
S-M (i.e., observation and control of expres-
sive behavior and self-presentation) was in-
troduced into psychology in 1974 by the
American-based Canadian social psychologist
Mark Snyder (1947- ), who found that high
self-monitors regulate their expressive self-
presentation and are highly responsive to so-
cial and interpersonal cues to situationally
appropriate behavior, whereas low self-
monitoring individuals lack such abilities or
motivations. S-M requires the person to attend
selectively to specific actions or cognitive

processes, to distinguish them from other ac-
tions/processes, and to discriminate their out-
comes. Although there is good agreement
among theorists regarding the overt features of
S-M, psychologists differ in their descriptions
of various covert psychological dimensions.
Thus, for example, information-processing
theorists view S-M within a cybernetic system
consisting of several stages: sensory environ-
mental input (perception), comparison with a
standard/corrective behavior, and behavioral
outcome. In contrast to this approach concern-
ing covert decision-making, cognitive-be-
havioral theorists emphasize the need for
546
overt forms of S-M, such as self-recording, as
tools for adapting both covert cognitions and
overt behaviors to environmental conditions
[cf., the Coué method/theory - named after the
French pharmacist and proponent of “auto-
suggestion” Emile Coué (1857-1926) - that
aims at self-improvement, as well as attempt-
ing to cure physical diseases, by regularly
repeating words over and over to oneself, such
as “Every day in every way, I am getting bet-
ter and better”]. Metacognitive theorists con-
ceive of S-M in terms of meta-awareness and
meta-control of knowledge and of cognitive
experiences and strategies; and social-
cognitive theorists stress the importance and

inter-dependence of all three major forms of
S-M: cognitive, behavioral, and environ-
mental. See also COGNITIVE THERAPY,
THEORIES OF; INFORMA-
TION/INFORMATION-PRO-CESSING
THEORY; SELF-CONCEPT THEORY; SO-
CIAL LEARNING/COGNIT-ION THEO-
RIES.
REFERENCES
Snyder, M. (1974). Self-monitoring of expres-
sive behavior. Journal of Personal-
ity and Social Psychology, 30, 526-
537.
Snyder, M. (1987). Public appearances, pri-
vate realities: The psychology of
self-monitoring. New York: Holt.
Zimmerman, B., & Schunk, D. (1989). Self-
regulated learning and academic
achievement: Theory, research, and
practice. New York: Springer-
Verlag.
Zimmerman, B., & Paulsen, A. (1995). Self-
monitoring during collegiate study-
ing: An invaluable tool for academic
self-regulation. New Directions for
Teaching and Learning, 63, 13-27.

SELF-PERCEPTION THEORY. See AT-
TRIBUTION THEORY; DEVELOPMEN-
TAL THEORY.

SELF-PRESENTATION THEORY. See
SELF-CONCEPT THEORY; SELF-MON-
ITORING THEORY/METHOD.

SELF-PSYCHOLOGY THEORY. See
SELF-CONCEPT THEORY.
SELF-SELECTION/SELECTIVE SAMP-
LING BIAS/EFFECT. See EXPERIMEN-
TER EFFECTS.

SELF-SERVING BIAS HYPOTHESIS. See
ATTRIBUTION THEORY.

SELF-VERIFICATION HYPOTHESIS.
See SELF-CONCEPT THEORY.

SELYE’S THEORY/MODEL OF STRESS.
The Austrian-born Canadian endocrinologist
and psychologist Hans Selye (1907-1982) was
one of the first modern psychologists to exam-
ine systematically the construct of stress and
its effects on the organism, although medical
and theoretical interest in stress goes back to
the Greek physician Hippocrates (460-377
B.C.). In the 1920s, the American physiologist
Walter B. Cannon (1871-1945) verified for
stress theory that the “stress response” is part
of a unified mind-body system, where a vari-
ety of stressors (such as lack of oxygen, ex-

treme cold, emotional states) trigger the flow
of adrenaline and noradrenaline that, in turn,
enter the bloodstream from sympathetic nerve
endings in the inner portion of the adrenal
glands. Such physiological events help to
prepare and adapt the body for what Cannon
called the “flight or fight” syndrome, or what
is known today as Cannon’s emergency syn-
drome. Hans Selye spent 40 years of research
on stress and expanded Cannon’s findings to
the extent that today stress is a major concept
in both medicine and psychology. Based on
his study of hormone-action in rats, and after
many disappointments with his experiments,
Selye discovered that many stressors such as
surgical trauma, heat, cold, electric shock, and
immobilizing restraint all have similar physio-
logical effects on the organism. The body’s
adaptive response to stress seemed so general
to Selye that he called it the general adapta-
tion syndrome (GAS), which is defined as the
pattern of nonspecific bodily mechanisms
activated in response to a continuing threat by
almost any severe stressor (cf., levee effect - a
reaction to disaster/stress, or the threat of dis-
aster, by the individual’s acquisition of psy-
chic devices used to protect the person or the
group, much like a levee that may not provide
full protection from flooding, but it does serve
547

to give one a sense of security). According to
Selye’s theory, the GAS is divided into three
stages: (1) alarm reaction - initially, the
stressor results in a state of alarm (“shock”
and “countershock” phases) and mobilization
in which the body’s resistance drops below its
normal level; (2) resistance - this stage devel-
ops where the adrenal cortex secretes protec-
tive corticosteroids, and where the body be-
comes highly susceptible to additional and
unrelated stresses; and (3) exhaustion - this
stage occurs if the danger from stress is pro-
longed, and the individual may become seri-
ously ill and die. The GAS has been observed
in cases of prolonged exposure to psychologi-
cal (e.g., maternal separation), environmental
(e.g., cold), and physiological (e.g. poison)
types of stressors. However, newer research
indicates that there are subtle differences in
the body’s reactions to different stressors, and
one weakness of Selye’s model is that it fails
to account for cognitive processes in deter-
mining how individuals interpret a specific
event to be stressful or not (cf., closed-loop
model of stress - holds that stress occurs in the
context of a systems model/theory, which sug-
gests that dynamic feedback patterns control a
variety of behaviors and indicate the organ-
ism’s capacity for stability and order; the
closed-loop model is in contrast to Selye’s

open-loop model that views stress as a static
system where stressors act cumulatively on a
passive organism; environmental-load theory
posits that humans have a limited capacity to
handle environmental stress factors, where
capacity is determined by the amount of in-
formation inputs that can be processed by the
person’s central nervous system; when the
load exceeds the person’s processing capacity,
the central nervous system responds by ignor-
ing some inputs; in contrast to the load theory,
the environmental-stress theory holds that
autonomic and cognitive/perceptual factors
combine to form an individual’s appraisal of
an environmental stress situation as either
threatening or nonthreatening; cf., the concept
of eustress that denotes a type of stress that
has a positive, beneficial, or stimulating ef-
fect; for instance, the stress involved in getting
a job promotion; and social-stress theory -
holds that effects of certain glandular reac-
tions are altered in some animals as the sizes
of the groups increase beyond an optimal
number, and social competition may lead to
adrenal/glandular stresses that may produce
behavioral and physiological deficits). Never-
theless, most medical experts agree with Se-
lye’s basic point that prolonged stress can
produce physical deterioration (cf., the rela-
tively recent field of behavioral medicine and

its perspectives on stress). Extending from
Selye’s work on stress, also, is the develop-
ment of the new field of study in psychology
called psychoneuroimmunology (and health
psychology) that seeks to examine how stress,
emotions, and upsetting thoughts affect the
body’s immune system to make the individual
more susceptible to disease. See also AC-
COMMODATION, LAW/PRINCIPLE OF;
CANNON/CANNON-BARD THEORY;
CONFLICT, THEORIES OF; HABITUA-
TION, PRINCIPLE/LAW OF; LAZARUS’
THEORY OF EMOTIONS; PSYCHOSO-
MATICS THEORY; SYSTEMS THEORY.
REFERENCES
Cannon, W. B. (1929). Bodily changes in
pain, hunger, fear, and rage. New
York: Branford.
Selye, H. (1936). A syndrome produced by
diverse nocuous agents. Nature,
138, 32.
Selye, H. (1950). Stress. Montreal: Acta.
Selye, H. (1956). The stress of life. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Selye, H. (1976). Stress in health and disease.
Toronto: Butterworth.
Pomerleau, O., & Brady, J. (Eds.) (1979).
Behavioral medicine: Theory and
practice. Baltimore: Williams &
Wilkins.

Selye, H. (1980). Selye’s guide to stress re-
search. New York: Van Nostrand.
Breznitz, S., & Goldberger, L. (1983). Hand-
book of stress. New York: Free
Press.
O’Leary, A. (1990). Stress, emotion, and hu-
man immune function. Psychologi-
cal Bulletin, 108, 363-382.
Taylor, S. (1990). Health psychology. Ameri-
can Psychologist, 45, 40-50.

SEMANTIC-FEATURE HYPOTHESIS.
See CHOMSKY’S PSYCHOLINGUISTIC
THEORY.
548
SEMANTIC SCRIPT THEORY OF HU-
MOR. See GENERAL THEORY OF VER-
BAL HUMOR.

SEMANTIC MEMORY. See FORGET-
TING/MEMORY, THEORIES OF; SHORT-
TERM AND LONG-TERM MEMORY,
THEORIES OF.

SEMIOTIC THEORY. See CHOMSKY’S
PSYCHOLINGUISTIC THEORY.

SENSATIONALISM/SENSATIONISM,
DOCTRINE OF. See EMPIRICAL/EM-
PIRICISM, DOCTRINE OF.

SENSITIVE DEPENDENCE PHENOME-
NON. See ORGANIZATIONAL/INDUST-
RIAL/SYSTEMS THEORIES.

SENSITIZATION, PRINCIPLE OF. See
HABITUATION, PRINCIPLE/LAW OF.

SENSITIZATION THEORY. See NEU-
RON/NEURAL/NERVE THEORY.

SENSORY CONFLICT THEORY. See
PERCEPTION (II. COMPARATIVE AP-
PRAISAL), THEORIES OF.

SENSORY DEPRIVATION EFFECTS.
See BRAIN-WASHING TECHNIQUES/
THEORY.

SENSORY DISCRIMINATION, CLASSI-
CAL THEORY OF. See NEURAL QUAN-
TUM THEORY.

SENSORY HOMUNCULUS HYPOTHE-
SIS. See HOMUNCULUS/SENSORY HO-
MUNCULUS HYPOTHESIS.

SENSORY MEMORY, THEORY OF. See
SHORT-TERM AND LONG-TERM MEM-
ORY, THEORIES OF.

SENSORY SALTATION ILLUSION. See
APPENDIX A.

SENSORY-TONIC FIELD THEORY. See
PERCEPTION (II. COMPARATIVE AP-
PRAISAL), THEORIES OF.
SEQUENCE EFFECTS. See EXPERI-
MENTER EFFECTS.

SEQUENTIAL DECISION THEORY. See
INFORMATION/INFORMATION-PRO-
CESSING THEORY.

SEQUENTIAL PATTERNING THEORY.
See CAPALDI’S THEORY.

SEQUENTIAL PROCESSING THEORY.
See INFORMATION/INFORMATION-PRO-
CESSING THEORY.

SERIAL-POSITION EFFECT. = serial
position curve = edge effect = end effect. The
serial-position effect is the generalization that
in a free-recall experiment the chance of an
individual item from a list being recalled is a
function of the location of that item in the
serial presentation of the list during learning.
The items that are toward the beginning of the
list and those toward the end are more likely

to be correctly recalled than those in the mid-
dle of the list. When the results of a serial-
position learning task are graphed, with cor-
rect recall of items plotted against the serial
position of the item during presentation, the
curve characteristically is bow-shaped with
high probabilities of recall for the first few
(called the primacy effect/law) and for the last
few (called the recency effect/law) items. The
serial-position curve is the same in form for
meaningful material as well as for nonsense
syllables [the German psychologist Hermann
von Ebbinghaus (1850-1909) devised over
2,000 consonant-vowel-consonant combina-
tions, called nonsense syllables, in order to
control for meaning and associations in ver-
bal-test materials; cf., Hunter-McCrary law;
McCrary & Hunter, 1953). An early theory of
the serial-position effect/curve was given by
W. Lepley, and C. L. Hull, and made great use
of the doctrine of remote associations (devel-
oped initially by H. von Ebbinghaus) and the
notion of the acquisition of inhibitory connec-
tions to suppress the observed remote errors:
such inhibitory factors were assumed to “pile
up” most in suppressing responses in the mid-
dle of the list and, as a result, most errors
should occur at the middle positions. The
major premises of the Lepley-Hull hypothesis
549

concerning remote associations, however,
have been discredited largely, along with the
theory that was constructed on that basis. An-
other theory of the serial-position effect/curve
was proposed independently by A. Jensen, and
by E. Feigenbaum and H. Simon. In Jensen’s
view, the items on a list that are learned first,
or best, are the ones to which the learner first
attends (i.e., the first item or two in the list),
and these first-learned items then serve as an
“anchor point” for learning the rest of the list.
Jensen’s theory, however, has been criticized
because of its vagueness concerning the basic
learning mechanism and the implausibility of
the argument concerning the attachment of the
items to “expanding” anchor points. Fei-
genbaum and Simon point out that there are
ways of distorting the characteristic shape of
the serial-position curve. For instance, if one
item is made clearly distinct from other items
(the von Restorff effect), it will be learned
much faster, or if half the list is colored red
and the other half black the curve shows a
large decrease in errors on the last item of the
red half of the list and the first item of the
black half. Feigenbaum and Simon developed
an information-processing theory of serial
learning where “anchor points” and a “macro-
processing system” describe the serial-
position results. Feigenbaum and Simon’s

theory - in addition to other response-learning
and guessing factors - gives a good account of
most facts known about the serial-learning
curve. See also FORGETTING/MEMORY,
THEORIES OF; INFORMA-
TION/INFORMA-TION PROCESSING
THEORY; von RESTORFF EFFECT.
REFERENCES
Ebbinghaus, H. von (1885). Uber der ge-
dacht-nis. Leipzig:; Duncker.
Lepley, W. (1934). Serial reactions considered
as conditioned reactions. Psycho-
logical Monographs, 46, No. 205.
Hull, C. L. (1935). The conflicting psycholo-
gies of learning - a way out. Psycho-
logical Review, 42, 491-516.
McCrary, J., & Hunter, W. (1953). Serial po-
sition curves in verbal learning. Sci-
ence, 117, 131-134.
Feigenbaum, E., & Simon, H. (1962). A the-
ory of the serial position effect. Brit-
ish Journal of Psychology, 53, 307-
320.
Jensen, A. (1962). An empirical theory of the
serial-position effect. Journal of
Psychology, 53, 127-142.
Slamecka, N. (1964). An inquiry into the doc-
trine of remote associations. Psy-
chological Review, 71, 61-76.
Jensen, A., & Rohwer, W. (1965). What is

learned in serial learning? Journal
of Verbal Learning and Verbal Be-
havior, 4, 62-72.

SERIAL PROCESSING THEORY. See
INFORMATION/INFORMATION-PRO-
CESSING THEORY.

SERIAL REPRODUCTION TECH-
NIQUE. See RUMOR TRANSMISSION
THEORY.

SET, LAW OF. See MIND/MENTAL SET,
LAW OF.

SET/MOTOR ADJUSTMENTS THEORY.
See PERCEPTION (II. COMPARATIVE
APPRAISAL), THEORIES OF; WUNDT’S
THEORIES/DOCTRINES/PRINCIPLES.

SET-POINT THEORY. See HUNGER,
THEORIES OF.

SET SIZE EFFECTS. See IMPRESSION
FORMATION, THEORIES OF.

SET-THEORETICAL MODEL. See
MIND/MENTAL SET, LAW OF.

SET THEORY. The Russian-born German

mathematician Georg Cantor (1845-1918)
developed set theory as a result of his exami-
nation of the circumstances in which a
mathematical function is represented by a
unique Fourier series (i.e., a generalization
that any complex periodic pattern may be
viewed as a particular sum of a number of sine
waves). Whereas previous investigators had
provided results for functions that are con-
tinuous on a given interval, Cantor considered
set of points at which functions behave in a
way that makes their Fourier series inappro-
priate. Cantor found that he could repeat this
550
construction and obtain from one such set
another set, sometimes indefinitely (cf., exten-
sion theorem of semantic entailment - in logic,
a theorem in propositional calculus stating that
if a set of premises p entails a conclusion q,
then the addition of further premises from a
larger set s that includes p cannot affect the
truth of the conclusion q; this theorem is at the
basis of the notion of monotonicity in logic,
stating that a valid argument cannot be made
invalid, nor an invalid argument made valid,
by adding new premises). Cantor’s approach
led to a highly original arithmetic of the infi-
nite, extending the concept of cardinal and
ordinal numbers to infinite sets. Basic to Can-
tor’s set theory is the idea that infinite sets

have the same size, or cardinality, if and only
if there is a one-to-one relationship between
their members. Cantor demonstrated that the
set of real numbers is “uncountable” (i.e., it
cannot be formed in a one-to-one relationship
with the set of integers), and that the set of
subsets of a set is always larger than the origi-
nal set. Cantor proposed - but could not solve
- the problem of characterizing the cardinality
of the continuum; such a problem is consid-
ered to be unsolvable in a more precise form.
Other features of Cantor’s theory of sets have
become essential in the areas of topology and
modern analysis in mathematics and statistics
in psychology. Around 1900, Cantor and his
friend Julius W. R. Dedekind (1831-1916)
simultaneously developed a naïve theory of
sets to serve as a foundation for mathematics.
Sets, or collections of objects, are represented
typically by an upper-case letter or by a pair
of brackets enclosing all of its members; for
example, the set of “natural numbers” is: N =
[1,2,3 …], and the set of “black American
presidents” is: F = Ø (this latter set is called a
“null set” or “empty set”). Set theory inher-
ently contains an interesting logical inconsis-
tency called Russell’s paradox [named after
its enunciation in 1901 by the Welsh philoso-
pher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)] that cen-
ters on the idea that some sets are members of

themselves and others are not. The so-called
barber’s paradox points out the paradox or
inconsistency via an example: suppose there is
a town barber who shaves all and only those
men who do not shave themselves - from this
it follows logically that if this barber shaves
himself, then he does not, and if he does not,
then he does (!) See also BOOLEAN SET
THEORY; FOURIER‘S LAW/SERIES/AN-
ALYSIS; FUZZY SET THEORY; MIND/
MENTAL SET, LAW OF; NEURAL NET-
WORK MODELS OF INFORMATION
PROCESSING.
REFERENCES
Cantor, G. (1897/1915). Contributions to the
founding of the theory of transfinite
numbers. Chicago: Open Court/New
York: Dover.
Muir, H. (Ed.) (1994). Larousse dictionary of
scientists. New York: Larousse.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION THEORIES =
homoeroticism = homosexuality theories. The
concept of sexual orientation refers to the
focus and direction of an individual’s sexual
interest. Heterosexual orientation is sexual at-
traction to members of the opposite
sex/gender; homosexual orientation is sexual
attraction to members of one’s own
sex/gender; and bisexual orientation is sexual

attraction to both sexes/genders. Historically,
the German physician, sex researcher, and
homosexual Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935)
supported some hormonal theories of homo-
sexuality that led others to attempt unsuccess-
fully to “cure” homosexuality with hormone
injections; he also endorsed the Urnings the-
ory (i.e., a theory dealing with the issue of
men who are sexually attracted to other men)
of the German jurist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs
(1825-1895) who argued in 1864 that “Urn-
ings” are “hermaphrodites of the mind.”
Whereas Ulrichs asserted that the “Urning
disposition” is natural and inborn, later au-
thorities - such as the German physician Rich-
ard von Krafft-Ebing (1840-1902) - labeled
“Urningism” a mental illness, and others
called it a “sexual inversion.” In 1886, Krafft-
Ebing combined Urning theory with the
French physician Benedict A. Morel’s (1809-
1873) theory of disease and concluded that
most homosexuals have a mental disorder
caused by “degenerate heredity” (called the
degeneracy theory). Krafft-Ebing’s degener-
acy theory was influential until the beginning
of the 20
th
century when Sigmund Freud’s
psychoanalytical orientation became popular
as a potential explanation of sexual orientation

551
(cf., Friedman & Downey, 2002; Garnets &
Kimmel, 2003; Mondimore, 1996; Phillips,
2003). A noteworthy event regarding the
social view of homosexuality occurred in
1973 when the American Psychiatric Associa-
tion (APA) deleted “homosexuality” as a psy-
chiatric disorder from their Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(APA’s “bible of nosology”). Surveys con-
ducted in the late 1940s and early 1950s re-
ported that about ten percent of the general
American population was homosexual; more
recent surveys in the 1990s, however, of
American, English, and French populations
indicate that only about three percent of men
and one-and-one-half percent of women have
a homosexual orientation. The theoretical
issue of why people display different sexual
orientations has been argued for decades, usu-
ally along the lines of the classical nature
versus nurture debate. Proponents of the na-
ture, or biological, side of the issue hold that
sexual orientation has its roots in biology and
physiology and is influenced primarily by
genetics; those on the nurture, or environ-
mental and learning, side hold that sexual
orientation is a learned behavior primarily and
is influenced primarily by early experience
and largely under the individual’s voluntary

control. Advocates of the nature position
argue that homosexual men and women gen-
erally know before puberty that they are “dif-
ferent” and often re-main “in the closet” re-
garding their sexual orientation for fear of
personal and social recrimination; the nature
proponents cite evidence from family and twin
studies that shows a higher incidence of male
homosexuality in families having other gay
men, as well as a higher rate of homosexuality
among men with a homosexual twin, even
when the twins are raised in separate envi-
ronments; they also cite studies indicating that
the sizes of specific brain structures may dif-
fer between homosexual and heterosexual
men (cf., Allen & Gorski, 1992; LeVay, 1991,
1993; LeVay & Ham-er, 1994; Swaab &
Hoffman, 1995). Advocates of the nurture
position of sexual orientation argue that the
research supporting the nature position basi-
cally is flawed methodologically and some-
times confuses the issue of what causes ho-
mosexuality with what results from it; these
advocates assert, also, that early sexual ex-
periences and socialization (including gender
nonconformity and rejection or attachment-
avoidance by parents and peers) determines
sexual orientation, and cite evidence showing
that the frequency of different sexual orienta-
tions differs significantly from one culture to

another [cf., the roles played in this debate by
speculations such as performativity theory
(i.e., deconstruction of foundational ideas of
gender/sexual identity, or “gender as perform-
ance;” Butler, 1991; Hegarty, 1997); feminist
theory (i.e., the theory suggesting that gender
is a major social, historical, and political con-
cept that influences women’s choices in all
communities and cultures; Belenky, Clinchy,
Goldberger, & Tarule, 1997; Squier & Little-
field, 2004; Stewart & McDermott, 2004);
deviance theory (i.e., the focus on cognitive
stereotypes, and perceptions of threats to soci-
ety, Plasek, 1984); psychotherapeutic theory
(i.e., the methods employed by therapists in
treating gays, lesbians, and bisexuals; Ritter &
Terndrup, 2002); the fraternal birth order
effect (i.e., the probability that a man being
homosexual is related positively to his number
of older brothers, but not older sisters when
the brothers are accounted for; James, 2004);
anthropometric/ steroid theory (i.e., bone
morphology, as a marker of childhood sex
steroid exposure, suggests that there are
physical differences in heterosexuals and ho-
mosexuals, where persons with a sexual pref-
erence for men have less long bone growth in
the arms, legs, and hands than those with a
sexual preference for women; Martin &
Nguyen, 2004); differential risk theory (i.e., a

theory subsumed under social exchange and
equity theories where, in this case, numerous
gender differences involved in long-term rela-
tionships require members of such close rela-
tionships to assume greater interpersonal and
social risks and costs as those compared to
same-gender relationships; Schumm, 2004);
evolutionary theory (i.e., the evolutionary
value of human homosexuality via the
strengthening of social bonds; DeBlock &
Adriaens, 2004; Schuiling, 2004); and the tend
and befriend theory of stress and coping (i.e.,
the speculation that men and women are
hardwired biologically to cope with stress
differently, based on differing evolutionary
552
paths; Taylor, 2002)]. Thus, homosexuality is
viewed as a complex and multi-factorial issue
where its etiology ranges from the biological
and evolutionary to the psychological and
social, and from the essential and materialist
to the constructionist. Currently, it appears
that neither the nature view nor the nurture
view can explain exclusively or completely
the origin of sexual orientation and, as is the
case with most complex psychological behav-
iors, it is likely that both nature and nurture
play significant roles in one’s sexual orienta-
tion. See also DARWIN’S EVOLUTION
THEORY; EQUITY THEORY; FREUD’S

THEORY OF PERSONALITY; LABEL-
ING/DEVIANCE THE-ORY; NATURE
VERSUS NURTURE THE-ORIES; SOCIAL
EXCHANGE THEORY.
REFERENCES
Krafft-Ebing, R. von (1887/1924). Psychopa-
thia sexualis. Stuttgart: Enke.
Plasek, J. W. (1984). Misconceptions of ho-
mophobia. Journal of Homosexual-
ity, 10, 23-37.
Deaux, K., & Major, B. (1987). Putting gen-
der into context: An interactive
model of gender-related behavior.
Psychological Review, 94, 369-389.
Butler, J. (1991). Imitation and gender insub-
ordination. In D. Fuss (Ed.), In-
side/outside-Lesbian theories, gay
theories. London: Routledge.
LeVay, S. (1991). A difference in hypotha-
lamic structure between heterosex-
ual and homosexual men. Science,
253, 1034-1038.
Allen, L. S., & Gorski, R. A. (1992). Sexual
orientation and size of the anterior
commissure in the human brain.
Proceedings of the National Acad-
emy of Sciences, 89, 7199-7202.
LeVay, S. (1993). The sexual brain. Cam-
bridge, MA: M.I.T. Press.
LeVay, S., & Hamer, D. H. (1994). Evidence

for a biological influence in male
homosexuality. Scientific American
(May), 44-49.
Swaab, D. F., & Hoffman, M. A. (1995). Sex-
ual differentiation of the human hy-
pothalamus in relation to gender and
sexual orientation. Trends in neuro-
science, 18, 264-270.
Mondimore, F. M. (1996). A natural history of
homosexuality. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press.
Belenky, M., Clinchy, B., Goldberger, N., &
Tarule, J. (1997). Women’s ways of
knowing: The development of self,
voice, and mind. New York: Basic
Books.
Hegarty, P. (1997). Materializing the hypo-
thalamus: A performative account of
the “gay brain.” Feminism & Psy-
chology, 7, 355-372.
Friedman, R. C., & Downey, J. I. (2002). Sex-
ual orientation and psychoanalysis:
Sexual science and clinical practice.
New York: Columbia University
Press.
Ritter, K. Y., & Terndrup, A. I. (2002). Hand-
book of affirmative psychotherapy
with lesbians and gay men. New
York: Guilford Press.
Taylor, S. E. (2002). The tending instinct:

How nurturing is essential to who
we are and how we live. New York:
Holt.
Garnets, L. D., & Kimmel, D. C. (Eds.)
(2003). Psychological perspectives
on lesbian, gay, and bisexual ex-
periences. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Phillips, S. H. (2003). Homosexuality: Com-
ing out of the confusion. Interna-
tional Journal of Psychoanalysis,
84, 1431-1450.
DeBlock, A., & Adriaens, P. (2004). Dar-
winizing sexual ambivalence: A
new evolutionary hypothesis of
male homosexuality. Philosophical
Psychology, 17, 59-76.
James, W. H. (2004). The cause(s) of the fra-
ternal birth order effect in male ho-
mosexuality. Journal of Biosocial
Science, 36, 51-62.
Martin, J. T., & Nguyen, D. H. (2004). An-
thropometric analysis of homosexu-
als and heterosexuals: Implications
for early hormone exposure. Hor-
mones & Behavior, 45, 31-39.
Schuiling, G. A. (2004). Death in Venice: The
homosexuality enigma. Journal of
Psychosomatic Obstetrics and Gy-
naecology, 25, 67-76.

553
Schumm, W. R. (2004). Differential risk the-
ory as a subset of social exchange
theory: Implications for making gay
marriage culturally normative and
for understanding stigma against
homosexuals. Psychological Re-
ports, 94, 208-210.
Squier, S., & Littlefield, M. (Eds.) (2004).
Feminist theory and/or science.
Feminist Theory (Special Issue), 5,
123-126.
Stewart, A. J., & McDermott, C. (2004). Gen-
der in psychology. Annual Review of
Psychology, 55, 519-544.

SHAPE-SLANT INVARIANCE HYPO-
THESIS. See EMMERT’S LAW.

SHARED AUTISM THEORY. See DEIN-
DIVIDUATION THEORY.

SHARED MANIFOLD HYPOTHESIS. See
EMPATHY THEORY.

SHEEP-GOAT EFFECT. See PARANOR-
MAL PHENOMENA/THEORY.

SHELDON’S TYPE THEORY. = somato-
type theory = typology theory. The American

psychologist/physician William Herbert Shel-
don (1899-1977) formulated a constitutional
theory of personality that emphasizes the im-
portance of the physical structure of the body
and biological-hereditary factors (“constitu-
tional” variables) as major determinants of be-
havior. The term constitution refers to those
aspects of the person that are relatively fixed
and unchanging (such as morphology, physi-
ology, genes, endocrine functioning) and is
contrasted with those aspects that are rela-
tively more labile and susceptible to modifica-
tion by environmental pressures (such as edu-
cation, habits, and attitudes). The constitu-
tional psychologist looks to the biological
substratum of the person for factors that are
important to the explanation of human behav-
ior. Constitutional psychology assumes the
role of a facilitator or bridge connecting the
biological with the behavioral domains. In
Sheldon’s approach, a hypothetical biological
structure (morphogenotype) underlies the ex-
ternal, observable physique (phenotype) that
determines physical development and molds
behavior. In order to measure physique, Shel-
don devised a photographic technique using
pictures of the individual’s front, side, and
rear in standard poses. This procedure is call-
ed the somatotype performance test. After
examining and judging about 4,000 of these

photographs, Sheldon and his associates con-
cluded that there are three primary dimensions
or components concerning the measurement
and assessment of the physical structure of the
human body: endomorphy - a body that ap-
pears to be soft and spherical; mesomorphy - a
body that appears to be hard, rectangular, and
muscular; and ectomorphy - a body that ap-
pears to be linear, thin, and fragile. All par-
ticipants in Sheldon’s photographs could be
assigned a score of from one to seven for each
of the three components and, with further an-
thropometric measurements, a complete de-
scription of the somatotyping process of indi-
viduals was possible. According to Sheldon,
the idea of somatotype is an abstraction from
the complexity of any specific physique, and
he developed various secondary components
by way of accounting for the great variation
across individuals. Secondary components
include: dysplasia - an inconsistent or uneven
mixture of the three primary components in
different parts of the body; gynandromorphy -
called the “g index” and refers to the degree
that one’s physique possesses characteristics
ordinarily associated with the opposite sex;
and textural aspect - a highly subjective
physical aspect reflecting “aesthetic pleasing-
ness.” Sheldon also developed three primary
components of temperament along with their

associative traits: viscerotonia (this is paired
with endomorphy) - is characterized by en-
joyment of food, people, and affection; soma-
totonia (this is paired with mesomorphy) -
refers to love of physical adventure and risk-
taking; and cerebrotonia (this is paired with
ectomorphy) - is characterized by a desire for
isolation, solitude, and concealment. The three
temperament dimensions, in conjunction with
a list of 20 defining traits for each dimension,
constitutes Sheldon’s scale for temperament.
Sheldon’s research led to the strong confirma-
tion of the constitutional psychologist’s ex-
pectation that there is a noteworthy continuity
between the structural/physical aspects of the
554
person and his/her functional/behavioral quali-
ties. Although Sheldon was successful in iso-
lating and measuring dimensions for describ-
ing physique and temperament, he cautioned
that the dimensions should not be examined in
isolation one by one but, rather, the pattern of
relations between the variables should be stud-
ied. Perhaps the most frequent criticism of
Sheldon’s constitutional theory is that it is no
theory at all but simply consists of one general
assumption: the continuity between structure
and behavior, and a set of descriptive concepts
for scaling physique and behavior. Other criti-
cisms focus on procedural/methodological

flaws in Sheldon’s research, and on the fact
that his notion of somatotype is not invariant
in the presence of nutrition, age, cosmetic
surgery, and other environmental changes. See
also GALEN’S DOCTRINE OF THE FOUR
TEMPERAMENTS; KRETSCHMER’S
THEORY OF PERSONALITY; PERSONAL-
ITY THEORIES; TRAIT THEORIES OF
PERSONALITY.
REFERENCES
Sheldon, W. H. (1940). The varieties of hu-
man physique: An introduction to
constitutional psychology. New
York: Harper.
Sheldon, W. H. (1942). The varieties of tem-
perament: A psychology of constitu-
tional differences. New York:
Harper.
Sheldon, W. H. (1949). Varieties of delinquent
youth: An introduction to constitu-
tional psychiatry. New York:
Harper.
Sheldon, W. H. (1954). Atlas of men: A guide
for somatotyping the adult male at
all ages. New York: Harper.
Humphreys, L. (1957). Characteristics of type
concepts with special reference to
Sheldon’s typology. Psychological
Bulletin, 54, 218-228.
Sheldon, W. H. (1971). The New York study

of physical constitution and psy-
chotic pattern. Journal of the His-
tory of the Behavioral Sciences, 7,
115-126.

SHIFTING, LAW OF. See VIGILANCE,
THEORIES OF.
SHIFT OF LEVEL PRINCIPLE. See GE-
STALT THEORY/LAWS.

SHORT-CIRCUITING LAW. See PER-
CEPTION (II. COMPARATIVE AP-
PRAISAL), THEORIES OF.

SHORT-CIRCUIT THEORY. See GE-
STALT THEORY/LAWS.

SHORT-TERM AND LONG-TERM
MEMORY, THEORIES OF. The dual-
memory theory holds that memory, generally,
is a two-stage process: short-term memory
(STM) that allows for the retention of certain
information for very brief periods of time, and
long-term memory (LTM) that permits infor-
mation retention for longer periods of time
(cf., the storage-and-transfer model of mem-
ory - is a “multistore” model of memory that
states that there are three types of memory:
sensory, short-term, and long-term). STM or
“immediate memory” is a hypothesized mem-

ory system having a limited amount of infor-
mation capacity, and capable of holding the
information for a maximum of 20-30 seconds
[cf., primary memory hypothesis - in 1890, the
American psychologist/philosopher William
James (1842-1910) suggested that a “primary”
memory system is closely related to con-
sciousness and differs from memory for gen-
eral knowledge; later, in 1969, this memory
system came to be known as “short-term” or
“working” memory; iconic memory/store -
refers to a theoretical sensory register, or
“sensory information store,” allowing a visual
image to persist for about half a second to two
seconds after its stimulus has terminated; this
type of memory/image/storage was studied
initially by the Hungarian physicist Johann
Andreas von Segner (1704-1777) in the mid-
1700s, and most currently by the American
psychologists George Sperling (1933?- ) and
Ulrich Neisser (1928- ); cf., also, echoic
memory/store theory - one of the hypothesized
“sensory registers” allowing an auditory im-
age to persist for up to two seconds after its
stimulus has terminated, making speech intel-
ligible and allowing one to localize sounds via
binaural time differences between the arrival
of sound at the two ears; precategorical
acoustic memory/store theory - an echoic